Language – The Speech Meadow

5 More Tips to Develop Language Through Play

Collette — Sun, 17 Nov 2019 13:00:28 +0000

Play is such a powerful tool to help develop a variety of skills, which is why many professionals recommend parents play with their children. It can be overwhelming. In a previous post, I shared five tips to use when playing to help develop language through play (go here.) In this post, I’m sharing another five tips.

Remember that children have short attention spans.

Children with language delays can have even shorter attention spans. Don’t expect children to play with a single toy for longer than half an hour. Some can, but many can’t. If your child is flitting from toy to toy, look at your toy choices. Are these toys a good fit? Are there too many toys out? Too many toys can overwhelm kids. Keep toy choices to a minimum when you are playing.

Pause.

Give your child time to understand what you are saying and then give a response. It feels very awkward and is hard to do. I still find it challenging, and I have to remind myself to wait. To help encourage your child to respond, lean forward and look expectantly to help cue your child that you are waiting for a response.

Change up the types of words you use.

It’s hard to make a sentence when you only know the names of things. Children with language delays tend to have less action words, describing words, and location words. SLPs tend to work on a child’s understanding and use of verbs, a lot. The same with location and describing words. Use a variety of action, location, describing words when talking.

Sabotage can create a compelling reason to communicate.

Use clear containers that your child has difficulty opening. Put favourite toys out of reach but still insight. This will allow them to ask for help. WARNING! While this is a great tool, using it too often will frustrate children and make it so that they don’t want to play with you. In this case, less is more.

Have fun!!

Make it fun for you. The more you are having fun, the more your child will have fun, and the more effective your play session will be. Be silly. Don’t worry, your child is not judging you. If you are playing trains for the thousandth time, this can be challenging. Try mixing up how you are playing trains. For example, don’t use tracks but have the trains run through paint and paint tracks on a large piece of paper. Another suggestion would be to try and mix up playing with trains with playing with other toys or doing different games.

Playing is a powerful tool to help develop so many skills in your child. Click here for a handout of these top ten tips. If you would like more ideas on how to work on specific goals through play, check out Come Play! which has over 150 play ideas to help develop language.

What are your favourite ways to encourage play with children?

5 Tips For Using Play to Encourage Development

Collette — Sun, 03 Nov 2019 03:13:02 +0000

Play can be a powerful tool to encourage language development. An SLP, OT, or other professional has recommended that you play with your child. Now what? This can seem very overwhelming. How? When? Where? Here are five tips to use play to encourage development.

Pick toys or activities that your child likes.

They will stay engaged longer, will be more willing to play with others, and children will be more engaged in language learning. Sometimes a toy is so engaging that it is hard for children to let others join in his or her play. This would not be a great toy to choose. For more information on picking toys to use in play, see this previous blog post, Choosing Toys to Help Develop Language Skills.

Be animated when playing.

Exaggerating your facial expressions and the tone of your voice will help keep your child’s attention longer. It also encourages children to copy you. A child’s ability to copy your actions, words, expressions, and gestures are crucial to help language development.

Use short concise grammatically correct sentences.

A general rule of thumb is to use one or two more words than the child can use. For example, if your child is using single words to communicate, then use no more than three words in a sentence. This will help with their comprehension, and it will show them how to make longer sentences.

When using short sentences, use the correct grammar.

Those little words (is/are, a/the, to) are important. If you don’t use them, your child will have to learn them later. It will help to be more specific when talking with you.

Limit the number of questions you ask.

What you say?! But I can get my child to talk when I ask questions. Asking too many questions can feel like they are being tested or worse yet like they are being interrogated. It can also limit the back and forth rhythm of a conversation. So use lots of comments (e.g., A big truck!) with a spattering of questions.

I hope these tips will help you feel more confident when playing. Click here for five more tips to use play to encourage development.

More Tips for a Push-In SLP in Preschool

Collette — Thu, 26 Jul 2018 18:27:00 +0000

In the last post, I posted tips for a new push-in SLP in preschool. While writing it, I realized that it was becoming too big and decided to split it into two posts. To get the first half, go here. Here are more tips that can help you to start preschool on the right foot.

Concepts of the Week.

The concept of the week is a vocabulary word, grammatical form, sound, or language skill that will be emphasized during the week (or two weeks). As children often have weak verbs, prepositions, and pronouns, these were my “go-to” concepts.

I tend to work on the earlier developing “concepts” at the beginning of the year and then, depending on the student’s work on later developing towards the end of the year. Do not be afraid to recycle concepts. Your students will need the review.

Many students with language delays will have weak verb and preposition knowledge and use. When assessing for goals, make sure that these are on the top of the list of skills to assess. When planning activities in the classroom, ensure you include activities that work on this vocabulary. Pronoun use, sequencing, categorization, social language skills, and labeling emotions are other areas that I often target.

Use songs and books.

Preschoolers respond well to songs and books. If you are doing large group activities, make sure that you incorporate songs and books. Use books and songs even if you are working with a child one-on-one. There are many great songs and song publishers out there, from Super Simple Songs and Talk It Rock It, to name a few. There are so many books around to help with a wide variety of skills and topics.

Differentiation.

All SLPs do this, but you may need to differentiate more than you have in previous positions due to the wide range of skills you may be working on or time constraints. To make the most of your planning and therapy time, make sure you can work on several goals with the least amount of materials.

While I prefer to work with children that have similar goals at the same time, that is not always possible. Using an activity to work on artic skills and/or grammar skills and/or foundational language skills is very beneficial to you and your students.

Many students you serve will have weak play and social language skills.

In my experience, children with speech and/or language skills usually need help building these skills. The role of each discipline regarding who is working on play and social language skills can become murky. This is another topic that should be discussed at the beginning of the school year. In my opinion, everyone should be working on building these skills. Play skills and social language skills are other important areas for you to observe and treat throughout the year.

Sometimes, a child’s emotional needs will be more important than a child’s speech and language needs.

Now, this may be controversial for some, but if you have a student who is too anxious, or in too much pain, or so distraught that they can not pay attention, then what you do in therapy is going to be ineffectual. Your students are young, and many of them will have gone through more in their little lives than you will. As a result, it is doubly important to establish a strong relationship with your students.

If your student is having an awful day, it may be time to ditch your therapy plans and maybe play, or read a book, or give them a hug. Please ensure that you know your classroom, school, district’s policy on providing comfort to students and follow your policy.

If you are a new push-in SLP, know that you can do this. You have the skills and the knowledge to be successful. Many of the skills in your previous positions will still be valuable; you just may have to tweak them a little. Have fun, and don’t be afraid to laugh at the funny things your kids do or say. Laugh at the weird things that you never thought you would do or say.

Embrace the mess, which may or may not be as easy as it sounds. Be flexible. You may come into class with the best therapy plans ever, and either the students are not there, or a proverbial bomb has dropped in your class, and you have to change what you are doing completely. For tips on what to do for whole group activities, go here. You got this.

Five Tips for Creating Vocabulary Rich Preschool Classrooms

Collette — Sun, 04 Feb 2018 16:14:00 +0000

Establishing an environment for vocabulary development is crucial for all children. This is especially true for children who are in special education/at-risk programs. In my experience, most of these children have weak vocabularies. They need to be exposed to a variety of words, not just nouns, over and over and over again. Here are five tips I have found helpful for creating vocabulary rich preschool classrooms.

Use themes

This is a great way make sure that children are exposed to same/similar vocabulary during the time you are working on a theme. They would be exposed to words such as farm animals during circle time, while reading books, while playing, etc… Some children may be playing with cause and effect toys. It can be challenging, but try and find some cause and effect toys that match the theme. For a list of favourite topics, click here.

Even with emergent curriculum* being implemented here in Alberta, I would argue that you can still do an overarching theme. If you have children who love vehicles, have them use toy farm equipment. If you have children who love blocks, have them stack “hay bales.” Finally, if you have a theme that the children are loving, then don’t be afraid to extend that theme for a week or two. As well, if your children really are not interested in a specific theme, then don’t be afraid to cut that theme short.

Be intentional about the toys/equipment you use.

If you are using themes, this can be easier. If you are doing a farm theme, then every centre and free-play area is related to farms and farming. For example, use counting pigs to work on math skills. Create a mud table and put animals in it for sensory play. Same goes for circle time. If you are not using themes, then think about the vocabulary you want the children to learn and brainstorm about activities that would best teach that vocabulary.

Pick specific vocabulary to focus on

Write down a list of vocabulary that you want to target in class. It is also helpful to post the words somewhere in the classroom. I have even seen it where they post the words, where they would be most frequently used (e.g., clean and dirty were displayed above the water table). Make sure that you are picking more than just labels for things. Children need to be exposed to a wide variety of vocabulary including action words, location words and describing words.

If you are working with a Speech-Language Pathologist (SLP), find out what vocabulary goals the children have and incorporate them into your classroom. E.g., if you have children working on “in” and “out,” talk about the pigs going “in” the mud to get dirty and coming “out” of the mud to get clean. At the same time, share with your SLP/OT/PT your themes. They could probably find activities to work on their goals using your theme regardless if they are doing pushed in or pull out therapy. For more ideas on developing prepositions, click here.

Play and interact with the children

This may seem obvious to some people and very challenging for others. First off preschool sizes are getting larger and even with a “large” number of adults, staff members are often busy with crowd control, or paperwork, or getting ready for the next part of the schedule. Secondly, many adults have forgotten how to play or feel uncomfortable getting down and playing with children.

Remember, you are helping to expose children to a vast array of vocabulary and knowledge. Playing with allows you to answer their questions and expand their understanding. Children are little sponges and will learn from each other. If you teach a few, then they will often then teach some of the other children.

Make it fun

The more fun you have and the children have, the quicker they will learn, the longer they will retain it, and the odds are they will go home and share it with their families.

For other preschool push-in therapy posts, go here. With the vast array of studies linking vocabulary size and use to academic success, it is vital for preschool classrooms to be as rich in vocabulary as it can.

*A very concise definition of emergent curriculum is a process where the classroom staff uses the students’ interests, skills levels, and needs in order to plan the activities in the classroom.

Using Pirate, Viking, and Scientist in Speech Therapy

Collette — Fri, 15 Sep 2017 01:57:00 +0000

Pirate, Viking, and Scientist by Jared Chapman is an engaging book about a scientist who is friends with a pirate and a Viking, but the pirate and the Viking are not friends. Follow the scientist as he tries to help the Viking and the pirate become friends. It is a favourite for boys, especially those who are hard to engage. This book also provides excellent opportunities to work on speech and language goals with children from the first grade through second grade and onto the first half of third grade. Here are some ideas on how to use Pirate, Viking, and Scientist in speech therapy.

Social Language Goals

The story is about making friends, so it lends itself to talking about the different ways the scientist tries to help the pirate and the Viking become friends. It is an excellent opportunity to talk about what worked and what did not. As well, you can discuss why you think the pirate and the Viking were not friends at the beginning of the story? What other ways could the scientist have tried to help pirate and Viking become friends? Finally, the two become friends when they discouver how much they have common. Again, you could talk about questions to ask others when getting to know someone. As well, talk about proper behaviour at a birthday party. What is wrong with the pirate eating cake with his hands? Should the Viking have pushed the cake onto the pirate? What could they have done instead?

Language Goals

Pirates and Vikings have a lot in common. Use a Venn diagram to talk about what is the same and different. Another fun activity is to have the children dress up like a pirate or a Viking and have them describe what they are wearing.

The scientist uses a slew of scientific words such as hypothesis, experiments, and calculations. Other tier two words in the story include pillaging, plundering, fuming, seething, and foes. This can also be a great book to talk about synonyms which makes using Pirate, Viking, and Scientist in speech therapy a fun idea.

Articulation Goals

Many of the tier two words are two and three-syllable words. This book contains many /s/ words in all positions including scientist, seething, instinct, smooth, and answer. The word Viking is frequently repeated throughout this story. This story contains many /r/ terms such as friends, pirate, Saturday, mornings, favourite, experiment, observe, and laughter.

It is a great addition to a pirate theme, and at the same time, it works on more functional science vocabulary. It has been a hit in my therapy room so if you are looking for a fun book to read during treatment, this would be an excellent candidate! (As usual, this post does not contain affiliate links.)

Do you use Pirate, Viking, and Scientist in speech therapy? if so, how do you use it? Also, check out how to use Nicholas Oldland’s book by clicking here.

Using Boxes to Teach Spatial Concepts

Collette — Sun, 01 Nov 2015 18:33:00 +0000

In my family it’s common to hear, “One of the best toys to give children is a box.” Some of my favourite memories as a child revolved around playing with large boxes (we moved a lot!) At school I also try to incorporate boxes into play. Nowadays, it’s a little less cardboard boxes and a little more plastic containers. I have found that boxes are a great way to teach children about spatial concepts and work on play skills at the same time. They are also portable so you can work in the therapy room, classroom, in the gym or outside.

Why Use Boxes?

Children need to experience prepositions with their whole body not just with their hands or eyes. That’s why children with limited mobility or sight can sometimes have more difficulty learning this important vocabulary. Boxes are perfect for teaching early developing prepositions.

It always amazes me the number of children I see that lack basic play skills. It’s not just the children who are diagnosed with Autism. It’s also the children with speech and/or language delays and even typically developing children. Boxes are a great toy to expand play. They can be almost anything, a boat, car, house etc… One time is was a whale’s stomach from one of my favourite books, I’m the Biggest Thing in the Ocean.

Spatial Concepts You Can Teach

Boxes are a great way to teach spatial concepts. They are very open-ended. You can target:

in
out
on
off
under
next to/beside
close to
far from
around
by

Ideas on How to Play

Sometimes children’s exploration of boxes is organic and then an adult or other children will join in. Often it will start with an adult leading the activity. One week it was a T-Rex coming and the children needed to be safe so they got “in the box(es).” The children gleefully hopped in the boxes. Some of the children with mobility difficulties needed help (and were secretly working on their physio goals). For children in wheelchairs, big appliance boxes work well. Once the T-Rex got closer, everyone needed to get “out of the box.” Sometimes the T-Rex moved so fast that they had to “get under the box.” Sometimes the T-Rex would walk around the box or move near or far. By the end of the week, many of the children were taking turns being the T-Rex and we often heard the children shouting, “Get in!” or “Out!” or “Under!” followed by giggles and squeals. It made my speech heart smile to hear such wonderful language and the expansion of play skills.

For more ideas on how to target prepositions, click here to get a free handout. Do you use boxes in therapy? Let me know how you use them.

Teaching Upside Down: Great for Halloween or Bat Theme Language Therapy

Collette — Mon, 26 Oct 2015 12:30:00 +0000

I want to thank the Frenzied SLPs and Doyle Speech Works for hosting this linky party. Halloween in the preschool classes, I work in, means a week or two of bats. It also means I get to bust out one of my best and favourite circle activities (I’m in the classrooms 100% of the time). During circle time, I’m always introducing or reviewing different vocabulary. During bat week, my “word” is upside down. It’s kind of a strange concept to teach but it is a concept that comes up throughout the school year and hey it’s important to expand children’s vocabulary.

Here is what I do. I bring in one of the big toy bats that you can find at the dollar store. I talk about how bats do not like to be right side up but sleep and hang from trees upside down. Now the fun begins. I ask the class if they want to be bats. Most children excitedly raise their hands. One by one the children will come up and I will flip them upside down and say “Name is a bat. (S)he goes upside down.”

Now not all of the children will want to go upside down. I give them the option of making the bat go upside down. It always amazes me how quickly children will learn and use this phrase. For some children it has been the best communication temptation ever. As a carryover activity the children make a craft where they put the bat upside down. An example of one of the crafts I’ve done is below.

WARNING: Be careful when doing this activity as there is a chance that the children might fall and hurt themselves. Also, some children cannot be flipped over. Make sure you go over who can and cannot go upside down. Children who have shunts or have Down Syndrome should definitely not go upside down. Those children get to make the bat go upside down. Also, this can be very hard on your back. If you have back problems, I wouldn’t recommend doing this activity. I do it with 2-4 year olds so usually they are fairly light. I will also lift the heavier children towards the beginning of the activity. HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

Using Animal Figurines in Speech Therapy

Collette — Sun, 27 Sep 2015 21:50:00 +0000

Being an SLP, I have a lot of toys and games. I have already talked about how much I love Orchard Toys to work on speech and language skills. One of my other favourite type of toy are figurines. I have a wide range of animals and they pretty much live a school. Here are some ideas on how to use figurines in speech therapy.

Why?

Children are constantly exposed to animals in the books they read and often in the activities they are exposed to at school.
Children generally like animals.
It is so easy to make a game using figurines.
They are more engaging than worksheets or even pictures of animals.
Children need to manipulate toys.
I feel that it helps children learn the language skills they are trying to learn.

Using Figurines in Speech Therapy

Building Vocabulary

I will bring out the animals that are related to the theme in the classroom. In the preschool, we have been talking about farms. All my farm animals have been out along with barns and the kids have been having great fun playing with the animals and making animal noises. They have been invaluable in teaching the animal baby names and what groups of animals are called. For more ideas on how to build a language rich classroom check out this blog post.

Visuals for Songs

Figurines are great to use as visuals although sometimes I wish they were bigger so that they would be easier to see. We have been singing “Old MacDonald” a lot lately. I will have farm animals out so that the children pick what animal we are going to sing about next. The children who are talking will name the animal as they pick it up and hold it. The children who are not talking will take the animal. This way they are able to participate in the song.

Another very popular song at school is the “Alligator Song” (There is an alligator and orangutan, an eagle flying and a silvery fish…) where it names seven different animals. We will have the figurines out while we are singing the song. We will have the children help put the animals in the right order. When the game is done we will play “what’s missing” with those animals.

Categorization

This is a very common activity. Using figurines, the children are able to categorize in a variety of different ways. You can categorize based on where they live, how they move, what they look like, what they eat etc… I find that I tend to get the children moving more when I use figurines as opposed to pictures or worksheets. It’s not uncommon for me to hide animals around the room, down the hall or in the gym and have children run around finding animals and then putting them in their correct category. The set up and the clean up are usually quick, which is a bonus.

Prepositions and Answering “Where” Questions

Here is where working in a three dimensional mode is extremely valuable. The children get to really see how the different objects are related to each other in space. As well being able to physically manipulate objects is very valuable. It is also really easy to make it game. The animals often play “hide and seek” or will line up for something to eat.

Teaching Basic Concepts

I quite often use figurines for teaching big/little, same/different, spots/stripes etc… Again the children are able to see and touch the animals. This allows them to experience these concepts with more of their senses which helps them learn the concepts better.

Conversation Starters

Children like to talk about their favourite animals and tell you why. “E.g. I like bears because they have really really sharp teeth” Using the figurines as visuals, help the children pick an animal. This might be difficult without a figurine being present.

Describing Skills

I will often play “I spy” with the different animals. The children will both guess the answers and describe the animals. Again I will sometimes place the animals around the area we are doing therapy. The children then have to hold the verbal information while looking for the animal which helps work on their memory.

Similarities and Differences

I will frequently have the children group animals as they like them. Then they will tell why the animals are the same and different. This can be challenging for them as sometimes the animals are not that related or are very closely related.

Retelling Stories

This is a great way for children to re-tell stories or nursery rhymes. The children will often take the figurines and other objects and re-enact the stories they have learnt in class. This helps them better understand the story and helps with sequencing.

These are the most common ways I use animal figurines in speech therapy. How do you use them?

Those Crazy Pronouns: Working on He, She and They in Therapy

Collette — Tue, 08 Sep 2015 11:00:00 +0000

Pronouns can be very very tricky for children with language delays. Every year a good portion of the children I work with end up with pronouns as one of their therapy goals. As usual the first step is to figure what they are doing and why they are doing it. For some of the children, it’s a problem with pronunciation. They can’t pronounce he, she or they. They substitute another word that is easier for them to pronounce. For other children, it’s the fact that they have difficulties distinguishing boys from girls and so they interchange “he” and “she.” The last group uses the wrong type of pronoun. The most common mistake is using possessive pronouns for personal pronouns. These children will say “His is running” instead of “He is running.” Okay, so now you have figured out what they are doing wrong. How do you help them use the correct pronoun? Here are some ideas that I use in therapy.

1. Make it personally relevant. Children learn faster when it is relevant to their lives. In circle, I will have each child come up and we will identify if Suzy or Jonny is a he or a she. I will ask a child to come up and I will say, “Here is Suzy. Suzy is a girl. Suzy is a ‘she.'” I then go through all the kids. When I have done this a couple of time, I’ll get the children to yell out some of the answers. I will say, “Suzy is a ….” and then they respond. I also have the children sort themselves into “he” and “she”groups. The one they like the most is when I “work on” he and she. I’ll make mistakes and have the children correct me. I tend to do this when they are comfortable with the task.

2. Bombard the children with pronouns. At school we use Handwriting Without Tears and as such the children are very familiar with Matman. After we have sang the song and drawn Matman, we make up an adventure. We talk about what he needs. Usually I (or sometimes the children) will draw what he needs. For example, “Matman is outside in the rain. He needs a coat. He needs rubber boots. He needs an umbrella.” Matgirl will also make an appearance and sometimes they will both go on an adventure together.

3. Sort by he or she. You can use pictures of boys and girls. I tend to use Disney characters or Super heroes depending on the child’s preferences. This makes it more fun for the children than regular pictures of boys or girls. The children tend to want to stay longer and you can have some great conversations about the characters they are sorting. I avoid animal characters as it is confusing if they do not have “it” pronouns.

3. Use puppets. I have a few male and female puppets that come out on a regular basis and by the end of the year the children all know their names and are very excited when they come to visit. The children like it because you can make the puppets exaggerate their responses. It’s great for you because the children are learning. The kids think it’s hilarious when one of the puppets wants eat something silly. One day, Pirate Pete only wanted to eat bugs and another day, Doctor Dana only wanted green foods. Yes I tend to work on classification with the puppets too. Have the children receptively identify “he” and “she” by having the children give “he” or “she” an object. E.g. “Oh! He wants the ant.” Another way is to have the children tell you who (“he” or “she”) they are going to give/feed an object to. “Who wants the carrots?” “He wants the carrots.” Sometimes a child will have a strong preference for a particular pronoun and it can be a challenge to get them to use the other pronoun. That’s when the puppets can really “act out.” Make it so the child has to use the other pronoun by having the puppets use phrases such as “No, No, No! I don’t want that!” and/or “I really want it! Give it to me!” Children tend to be more receptive taking those types of suggestions from a puppet.

4. Use materials from Teachers Pay Teachers. There are many great products to help with pronouns on this site. I have a number of games that work on pronouns. One is called Feed the Chefs. These games help children to work on pronouns in a structured but fun way.

5. Use pronoun cards. I use these pronoun cards a lot! I like them because they have a he, she, and they version of each picture. I use them in a number of ways. The one that the children seem to like the best is jumping on the cards and then either sorting the cards or saying what the people are doing. Another favourite is placing the cards down a hallway or in the gym and have the children run around picking them up and identifying them.

6. Use in Pretend Play. I will bring out the doll house or use Melissa and Doug‘s Magnetic Dress Up sets. This gives the child a chance to use pronouns in a more natural environment. It gives you a chance to monitor how they are using their pronouns in a more natural setting.

A quick note, when working on “they” I always try to have a variety of different people together to make up the “they.” Some children have difficulties if there are only boys together, they will use “hes” or only girls together “shes”. Some children think that “they” is used only if one girl and one boy are together.

10 Ways to Use Groceries to Build Language Skills

Collette — Mon, 20 Apr 2015 03:11:00 +0000

Last post I talked a little about how you can use laundry to help language development, (click here). This time I would like to talk to you about the many ways you can use groceries to build language skills.

Most parents want activities to do at home with very little set up and groceries fit the bill. Now don’t get me wrong, this is by no means a time saver on your household chores. This will, in fact, add time and perhaps a little chaos to your day. My recommendation is to pick one and try it out. Try and keep your child’s language level in mind. Some of these may not be suitable for your child at this time. Make it fun and the children will improve their language skills and learn personal responsibility all in one!

1. Talk about where things go by using location words (prepositions): Often children with language delays have troubles understanding and using prepositions. Use words such as top, middle, bottom, next to, beside and/or under when the children are putting the groceries away. Alternatively, have the children tell you where they put the groceries. E.g. “It goes on the top shelf of the fridge.”

2. Talk about the word together: This is another way to talk about where food goes or what group (category) it belongs. E.g. “The beans all go together.”

3. Talk about same or different: Not only is this important vocabulary but also an important math skill. E.g. “The black beans are all the same but the tuna is different.” or “The tuna and the black beans don’t go together they are different.” Alternatively, have the child state if two foods are the same or not.

4. Talk about cold, frozen, warm and hot: This is great to do when you are putting the groceries away. Being able to experience the vocabulary your are trying to teach them is very important but as always you want to keep them safe!

5. Talk about heavy and light: When putting the groceries away talk about their weight. Have your child pick them up and have them talk about if they think it’s heavy or not.

6. Have your child sort by category: I’ve already touched on this one a little but have your child sort in a variety of ways (e.g. fruits v. vegetables, breakfast v. supper etc…) Alternatively, group the food and have your child try to name why they are sorted that way.

7. Use words such as not and doesn’t: These again can be tricky words to understand. Pretend to put the groceries away wrong and then talk about it. “Oh! That doesn’t go in the fridge!” It is important for children to see that everybody makes mistakes and how you can try again and fix it.

8. Play “I Spy”: At home or in the grocery isle, describe food and have your child try to find it (e.g. I’m looking for a vegetable that is small, round and green.) Alternately, have your child describe the food and you try to find it.

9. Following Directions: Make a game out of putting the groceries away. You can make them “serious” (e.g. take the lettuce and the cucumbers and put them away.) or you can make them “funny” such as “take five oranges, hop to the fridge and put them away.” Alternately, have your child give you the directions. What kid doesn’t like bossing their parents around?

10 Build in pre-reading skills: Have your child help make the list of food that you need. Cut out (or have them do it) pictures from flyers or images off the internet and glue them to the list. Add written words beside the pictures. Then have your child check them off as you put them into the cart. You could also make them a list of items for them to put them away.

And as always, I can never stop at ten so here is one more.

11. Try a new foods: Let your child pick out something new at the store. Talk about how it tastes, if they like or not and why?

If you would like to know about how chores can help children’s development, go here. If you would like a handout on how to use laundry to develop language skills, go here. For other handouts on building language with a variety of life skills, check these handouts outs.

I hope you enjoyed reading this and if you have any other ways to add language into grocery shopping I would to hear about them!